


[Fandom stats] Popular tags on deviantART vs. other platforms

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [39]
Category: Fandom - Fandom
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: A comparison of some commonly tagged fandoms and ships on deviantART vs. the major fanfiction archives (as of 2014).





	[Fandom stats] Popular tags on deviantART vs. other platforms

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on Tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/97143903529/deviantart-preliminary-fandom-stats). Sorry for the old, low-resolution images. 
> 
> Note that this is an incomplete sampling of tags; I don't have a way to identify the top tags on DA. So it's a comparison of tagging practices across the different platforms, not a list of what's most popular overall.

I started poking at deviantART from a fandom stats perspective.  I'm not terribly familiar with the site; please correct any errors or misunderstandings on my part if you see them.

dA doesn't exactly have a tagging system, but authors can assign keywords to help their artwork turn up in the appropriate searches.  So I took a look at the number of search results returned for a bunch of fandom-related keywords to see whether the landscape looked approximately the same as on AO3 and other platforms that host a lot of fannish activity.

(Spoiler alert: nope.)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipPhPLD8fLXUf8fTL1YesK9EtqHilcu74eSs5w7D?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

This, by the way, is a somewhat haphazard combo of fandoms that occurred to me to try and top popular fandoms from FFN/AO3.  All of these keywords returned at least 100K results.  (And if there is a better way to search for which fandom the fanart belongs to than keyword search, somebody please let me know!)

This is pretty different from the layout on AO3 or FFN.  Naruto is also in the top few most popular fandoms on FFN, and a popular fandom on AO3 (though less so).  But Pokemon, Sonic (the hedgehog) and MLP (my little pony), while definitely not unpopular, return far fewer results in terms of fanfic.  And it's fascinating to see the AO3 power fandoms like Supernatural so far down on the list.

For (partial) comparison, see this chart that I put together when [analyzing Wattpad](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/82346924278/hello-toasty-firstly-thank-you-for-all-of-the-stats):

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipPCBGXAGGIq2ugmy1O_aCvj_CJ6v6-9YT_nfR46?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

What about popular ships?  Are they similar on dA?  I looked for a few common fanfic ship names I knew and then added in a popular Naruto ship for comparison (in other words, this is not even close to a comprehensive or systematic list):

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipOqN93rYCQRaxzQQmorcMc5T0PX0pcJiskLb-yR?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

The top ships are a more familiar list here.  SasuNaru (from Naruto) is a popular ship on FFN, and the others in the top five are popular on both FFN and AO3.

This is all just a first look on my part -- a sketch of how the dA landscape is interestingly different from the others I'm more familiar with.  I'd love thoughts and suggestions on how to explore further!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome, but I’m in the middle of a massive fandom stats backup due to Tumblr purge, so I may be slow to respond.


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